Thursday 14 June 2007

10 easy steps to supermarket liberation

Last week I wrote about suicide by Tesco, which means that through our shopping choices we’ve allowed local food shops to die out, and with them our resilience. So here are some easy steps to liberation from Tesco and other supermarkets.
Just stop, cold turkey.
Take stock of the local shops. Visit.
Savour the lovely, healthy food.This assumes you’re also considering cutting back on cars.
Delivery: that’s how the Victorian middle classes did it.
Things our family gets delivered: weekly veggie boxes from Ashurst Organics, including eggs, bread, juice and now an organic fruit bag.
Infinity Foods delivers cheap, bulk, whole-foods; either direct or via Just Trade.
Unigate delivers organic milk, and we hope Gote Farm in Ringmer might start to deliver unpasteurised milk to Lewes soon.
Farmers’ markets are a great source for all produce, including meat for the freezer, and you can’t get more local than our lovely Boathouse Farm.
Get used to shopping daily for other fresh food, which means that if you are a commuter, you might have to develop another career (over time).

Food used to be 30% of a household’s budget. It’s now 8%. So now we get food-related illnesses. If budget is an issue for you, eat further down the food chain: eat less meat and dairy and more affordable organic pulses and vegetables in season. Lewes shops are rife with low-impact, high-joy foods such as olives and oysters and cucumbers and cabbages, beer and blueberries, mince and mint, carrots and carrot cake, potatoes, tomatoes, basil, carrots. Enjoy.

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